<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>single thread of gold by bea_meupscotty</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25750966">single thread of gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_meupscotty/pseuds/bea_meupscotty'>bea_meupscotty</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5, Persona Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro Needs a Hug, Akechi Goro Redemption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, But first a lot of angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, POV Akechi Goro, basically akechi goro character study, except not</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:53:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25750966</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_meupscotty/pseuds/bea_meupscotty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the course of a series of accidental encounters, Akechi discovers what it might be like to have confidants.</p><p>Or, there's more than one way to have a change of heart.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. ash from your fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Did I intend to write this in a fever one day after finishing the game? No. Have I? Yes. Yell at me on tumblr @ bea-meupscotty. </p><p>After Akira's (alleged) death, Akechi finds himself struggling, and has a series of fortuitous run-ins with the non-Phantom Thieves who hover in Akira's orbit, with each chapter devoted to a different one. This first chapter is setting the scene with just Akechi. Next chapter is Takemi Tae.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was done. </p><p>He nudges the familiar messy black mop of hair once, twice—waiting for the consummate trickster to pull out one last trick, to beat him one more time. </p><p>There’s nothing. He shudders his way through a smile, crooked and warped. He’s won, now, hasn’t he? His body moving without conscious thought, he efficiently removes the silencer and slides it into his uniform jacket. He’s done it. He’s come out on top, at last, in their game. He curls a hand around one of Joker’s limp ones to slide the gun between his fingers. Notices, in a way that feels removed from his own cognition, that it somehow feels surprising and wrong that there’s no blood on them. It’s hard to tell from just his hand that he’s dead and not sleeping. Akechi waits for the elation, the satisfaction of the fruition of all of his plans, of winning.</p><p>And he waits. </p><p>And he waits. </p><p>And he waits, hesitating as he stares at Aki—<em>Joker’s</em> unseeing, empty eyes. Black has never looked so cold. </p><p>It’s harder to think of him as Joker when he’s in his school uniform and he’s missing his glasses. Where are his glasses? </p><p>Akechi notices that his hand is still hovering just above where Akira’s is resting on the table, and that it’s trembling slightly. He closes it into a tight fist so that he doesn’t have to see the tremors. </p><p>Where are his glasses? He looks too vulnerable without them, naked and exposed and—</p><p>—<em>Akechi remembers thinking that before, too. He’s sitting at a little cafe table, someplace pretentious in Shibuya he knew Akira was only tolerating, and the weight of the glasses on his face is unfamiliar and strange, almost as strange as getting this glimpse at Akira’s bare face. It almost feels illicit, too intimate, to be able to suddenly see the way that the corners of Akira’s eyes are crinkling in amusement, the soft little indents on the side of his nose where his glasses have been sitting. A confidence freely given, like Akira’s handed Akechi a newborn chick, not realizing that all Akechi’s hands are really good for is crushing and clawing and hurting. All of that, after having felt the warmth of Akira’s fingertips brushing the tips of his ears and his temples when he slid the glasses on, the comforting strength in his hands as he rumpled Akechi’s hair, hearing Akira’s laugh, when the afternoon sun is strong enough to leave its warmth even in the shade of the buildings, and Akechi is raising one hand to touch the glasses half-comprehendingly, and he—and he—and he </em>aches—</p><p>He’s shaking hard enough that he can see it even in his clenched fist now, so he swallows heavily and turns to leave the room, pushing it down. It’s easier when he can’t see Akira, can’t smell the blood, can’t see the gun that’s shared their touch just sitting on the table. He takes a deep breath as he rounds the corner and dials the bastard’s number. </p><p>“Shido-san. It’s done.”</p><p>And he doesn’t know why he constantly lets himself half-expect even a hint of gratitude or approval from the piece of shit he shares half of his DNA with, when all he gets in return is a sharp correction not to use the man’s name. He should’ve known better than to use the name anyway—hell, he does know better, but his hands are still shaking because he’s just <em>killed a man</em>, not a Shadow, not a cognition in the Metaverse, hadn’t watched their inevitable death from afar, and even though he knows the causality has always run straight from him to death before, it’s somehow different, feeling the gun in his hand and watching the light blink out of Akira’s eyes—no slow fade like they show in the movies here, because gunshots to the head aren’t things one <em>fades away</em> from—and <em>fuck</em> he should’ve had his glasses on, and then Akechi wouldn’t have had to look at those big, vulnerable eyes as the life left them. But Akira didn’t have his glasses, and so Akechi had seen it all, but none of that matters to Masayoshi Shido. </p><p>Akechi doesn’t know why he ever expects anything else. </p><p>When he finally gets home that night, he doesn’t feel the familiar weight leave him. Being out in public, he constantly feels the charade weighing on him, but when he’s alone in his spotless little apartment, he can be free. But tonight, he still feels heavy, oh so heavy. He moves to the kitchen to heat up convenience store yakisoba, too tired to bother with pretending he prefers the carefully prepared healthy meals he usually makes for himself. While he waits for the food to heat, he leans his head against the microwave, listening to the low thrum, and lets his eyes close. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he watches the light in Akira’s eyes die over and over again. He remembers how vulnerable those little divots on the bridge of his nose had looked, how he’d wanted to smooth one finger along them. He jerks when the microwave timer goes off, and pulls out the cup of noodles. It was necessary, he tells himself. It was right. He needed to win. He hated Akira, hated all of them for their optimism and their camaraderie and the easy way that they’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted. He’d had to lie and cheat and flay every good part of himself alive, and all he had was a father who would never appreciate him and a public whose opinion of him was fickle and harsh, and for them—</p><p>He jerks and hisses as he realizes he’s started shaking so hard that he’s spilled hot broth on his arm. Swearing under his breath, he wipes at it with a towel and walks to the couch. There’s no use dwelling on this, he tells himself. What’s done is done. It couldn’t have been any different. Whatever it is that they have, that they’re made of, it’s easy to like—easy to love—but Akechi is different. He is cursed, and no matter how hard he pretends, everyone finds out eventually. It’s why he has to claw his way to love and affection. No one has ever freely offered it to him, even those stupid Phantom Thieves had treated him with hesitant acceptance and suspicion at best—<em>except</em>, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, and he remembers the warmth of Akira’s hands mussing his hair, his smile illuminated in the blue glow of the aquarium, his favorite cup of coffee waiting for him at Leblanc, a little too strong just the way he likes it, Akira’s laughing voice saying <em>honey I’m home</em>. </p><p>His chopsticks fall to the coffee table with a clatter that sounds too loud in the quiet of his apartment, followed by a choked-off sob that he realizes with horror is coming from him. He claps his hands to his mouth as if he can hold it in, but they just keep coming, until he’s shaking with silent tears on his couch, crying harder than he has since his mother died. In the morning he’ll have to pull himself together, he knows, shrug back on his gloves and his detective prince coat and his pretty face facade, but for now he lets himself fall apart on the threadbare couch in his empty apartment.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Listen, if you have made it to the end, I will confess a secret to you. Did I intend to write this as low-key songfic to Taylor Swift's folklore album? Absolutely not. Did I listen while I was writing and realize I could match all the lyrics? .... Yes. So, the fic title is from "invisible thread". The title to this chapter is from "hoax", because - i mean read all the lyrics but the verses!!!</p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>My only one<br/>My smoking gun<br/>My eclipsed sun<br/>This has broken me down<br/>My twisted knife<br/>My sleepless night<br/>My winless fight<br/>This has frozen my ground</p>
  <p>My best laid plan<br/>Your sleight of hand<br/>My barren land<br/>I am ash from your fire<br/></p>
</div>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. dream of some epiphany</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Next chapter will be Mishima (best sad boi)! The song I listened to for this chapter is "epiphany".</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He knows it’d be stupid to go back. No matter how much he wants to walk into Leblanc and grab a cup of coffee, there’s no (<em>Akira around to make it just like he needs it</em>) way Sakura-san won’t kick him out as soon as he crosses the threshold. Unless it would be to let him stay, only to poison his curry and coffee. </p>
<p>No, he knows that way lies disaster. </p>
<p>Which is why he’s pacing the adjoining streets of Yongen-Jaya, trying not to think about the one alley he’s furiously avoiding. He realizes, dimly, that this isn’t smart either, that an interview aired just this morning with him talking about capturing the Phantom Thieves, his face has never felt more recognizable, and surely someone even in this sleepy little neighborhood will start to wonder why famous detective Akechi Goro is haunting their alleyways. And haunting feels like a good word for it—Akechi feels like a ghost. The makeup artist at the station had tutted at him when she’d seen the bags under his eyes, but he’d barely even had to try to make up an excuse about the hard work of fighting crime and she was beaming at him. It makes him sick, how quickly they all shifted back to adoring him, when he’d been a pariah just months earlier. They’re so shallow, so transparent.</p>
<p>He’d cried himself to sleep for the third night in a row last night, though that wasn’t quite right, because that implied that sleep had followed the crying, and he was fairly certain that he’d just restlessly torn at his sheets while regrets and bad memories flickered behind his screwed-shut eyes. It was unacceptable, really. He was never this out of control. Although—Akechi knew better than anyone else that the control was just a fraud, a fake. The real Akechi Goro, the one deep inside, was the one of Loki, a force of nature, wild and chaotic. So what did it say about him that this was the closest he’d felt to that Akechi outside of the Metaverse in years? The two things that felt real: destroying the minds of the cruel and corrupt, and sobbing over his greatest rival in the dead of night. </p>
<p>He catches someone giving him a long look out of the corner of their eye, and realizes that he’s started shaking. He wraps the jacket tighter around himself, but he knows it won’t help—it’s not even that cold out. It was the lack of sleep that was catching up with him, had to be. He leans against the wall of an old movie theater, letting his forehead rest against the cool concrete as he tries to force his suddenly unruly body back under control. </p>
<p>“Hey, kid, you okay?” </p>
<p>He blinks, and turns to look at the woman staring at him from where she’s leaned next to him, back against the concrete, legs crossed, one eyebrow raised. She’s wearing a doctor’s coat, but otherwise looks like she’s on her way to a punk rock concert, complete with heavy eye makeup and dangerous-looking heels. Her voice sounds like she’s concerned but doesn’t want to be, and the part of that she’s trying to conceal is the concern, which is—different. </p>
<p>When he’s finally turned enough for her to see his face, something like recognition blossoms behind her eyes.</p>
<p>“You’re that detective kid, aren’t you? The one who just caught the Phantom Thieves?” </p>
<p>Akechi screws his eyes shut and tries to hide the shiver that runs through him at the reminder—of his greatest achievement to date, of Akira’s dead-eyed stare. </p>
<p>When it becomes apparent he isn’t going to pull himself together enough to answer anytime soon, he hears the woman sigh next to him. “Look, I don’t particularly give a shit why you’re wandering around Yongen-Jaya, so I’m not going to pry into your detective bullshit. But you don’t look well, I have medicine, and just based on the number of times I’ve seen you on TV, I’m pretty sure you’re good for it.” </p>
<p>His mouth instinctively moves to decline, to push away the concern, but—medicine, she’d said, and he grabs at the idea suddenly. Yes, medicine will make it all better—he clings to it like it’s a life preserver in the middle of this storm of his own making. He will take her medicine, and it’ll finally quiet the throbbing of his head, behind his eyes, at the base of the neck, it will make him fall asleep, and when he wakes up he’ll be able to put this all behind him and keep going with his plan. The election is soon, after all, and he doesn’t have the time to spare on (<em>grief</em>) weakness. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” he says, giving her what he hopes is a disarming smile (it’s gotten alarmingly hard to pretend) and hopes that she takes the hoarseness of his voice to be a sign of a cold, instead of nights of sobbing and screaming into his pillows. </p>
<p>She exhales heavily as she walks across the street to where he can see a little sign indicating there’s a clinic, barely even glancing behind herself to see that’s he’s following. He does anyway, though—follows her up a set of scuffed stairs and into a dingy waiting room with months-old magazines in a shabby rack, and then into an examination room that, while at least clean, is still small and tired-looking. She’s silent as she proceeds with her examination, and Akechi appreciates that she doesn’t try to make idiotic small talk or, worse, talk more about the Phantom Thieves. </p>
<p>When she’s done, she leans back and gives him a cool look. “Well, you’re dying, but I can cure you for 100,000 yen.” </p>
<p>Something of his shock must filter into his face, because after half a second she just sighs.</p>
<p>“I’m kidding, obviously. You’re not even really sick, you just need to eat a few good meals and, seriously, get some goddamn sleep.”</p>
<p>Akechi just blinks, looking at this strange woman. He’d started to doubt she was even a serious doctor, but, well, she had pretty well narrowed right in on the underlying issue after five minutes of examination. </p>
<p>“Here, take some of this, and then just—lay down, okay? Shit, you seem so out of it that even I don’t feel good about sending you back out there before I know you’ve gotten some shut-eye.” </p>
<p>She gets up and opens a cabinet in the corner of the room, pulling out a blanket that, while it looks like it’s seen better days, does at least have that freshly-laundered smell, and looks at him expectantly. He hesitantly takes the pills she’d put on a little tray to the side and swallows them in a single gulp with the cup of water next to them, and then lays down on the examination cot. She settles the blanket over him, and then gets a pillow from the same cabinet. This she at least hands to him, so that he can place it under his own head. His heart is thumping loudly, too fast, and he wants to question whether he’s having a reaction to the medicine, but it’s more that—no one has come half so close to tucking him into bed since he was child, he’s not even sure his mother had ever done this, and now this—this total stranger, this absurd woman is—</p>
<p>“What do I owe you?” he says suddenly, realizing she’d given him medicine. Of course—how stupid was he, wondering what she wanted. She was a professional, and she wanted what she was owed. Money. </p>
<p>She grunted from where she was looking at the computer screen in front of her. “I gave you an aspirin. Don’t worry about it.” </p>
<p>Ah, so she wants to play it this way. “No really,” he insists, putting on his most charming voice—a strange experience from where he lays under a threadbare blanket, head propped up on a lumpy pillow, “you also gave me your time, examining me and letting me lay here. You could’ve had other patients. I really insist.” </p>
<p>She doesn’t even look away from the chart on her computer screen. “It took me ten minutes and you aren’t even really ill. I was heading out anyway when I saw you.” </p>
<p>He makes a noise of disbelief, and she tuts, seeming annoyed that she has to turn and look at him. “If it’ll give you heartburn not to pay, it’s a couple hundred yen for the dry cleaning for the blanket and pillow. Just give me that. Now try to get some sleep, kid.”</p>
<p>He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. If he shuts his eyes, he knows he’ll just see that face again, so he lets himself be distracted by the pattern of tiles on the ceiling and the mystery of the woman next to him. What can she possibly want? She must want something. He hasn’t even had the energy to be his usual charming self to her. Is this out of a sense of misplaced gratitude to him for capturing the Phantom Thieves? She hasn’t brought it up since their initial conversation, and she hadn’t even seemed particularly grateful then, just—neutral. Like it was a piece of knowledge like any other, like that it had rained that Tuesday or that the grocery store had a sale on melons. Akechi Goro was the detective who caught the Phantom Thieves. She hadn’t even seemed impressed. </p>
<p>And normally that would make him burn, but—she’d helped him anyway, given him medicine and put a blanket over him and told him to get some sleep. </p>
<p>“I have a blog. I can post about your clinic on it—my fans would be thrilled to hear my recommendation.” </p>
<p>It’s a little less subtle than he usually is, but he’s <em>tired</em> and his mask is wearing thin, desperation showing through to figure out what this person wants before she takes it from him anyway. </p>
<p>She snorts from across the room. “Please don’t—I don’t want any more customers than I already have.” </p>
<p>That seems preposterous, given the state of the clinic—she could do so much with more customers, more money, at the very least get newer magazines—but everything about this punk doctor is preposterous. They sit in silence for a few more minutes. Akechi tries closing his eyes, but what floats to the surface is the too-serious look on Akira’s face when Akechi had impulsively blurted out an invitation for Akira to abandon the Phantom Thieves and join him, the considered way that Akira had said he’d think about it. He’d told himself over and over that Akira was talking without thought, that Akira would never give up his real friends for someone like Akechi, that even if he did, it would only be for the fake Akechi, the suave detective prince mask, but—the memory of the solemnity on his face at that moment, like maybe he would have, like maybe they <em>could</em> have, hits Akechi like a punch to the gut.</p>
<p>“Are you sure I can—”</p>
<p>He can’t even finish the sentence before the doctor spins around. “Are you going to get any sleep?” </p>
<p>He starts to lie, because lying has become like breathing to him, but—what’s the point? She’ll know he’s lying, because she’ll be able to see and hear him lying awake on this stupid cot in this stupid clinic until she gets tired of putting up with him. </p>
<p>“No.” </p>
<p>She sighs heavily, and rubs at one of her temples. </p>
<p>“I can just go home. I don’t want to keep you here just for me to count your ceiling tiles. Eighteen, in case you were wondering.”</p>
<p>He finds, somewhat to his own surprise, that he’s not lying about not wanting to keep her here all night. This woman actually seems nice, inscrutable though she may be, and he feels ache-y again at the thought of her just sitting in this drab, sad little room while a murderer lies next to her, stewing in his own guilt. </p>
<p>She huffs out a laugh about the ceiling tiles, and gives him a look that might almost be a smile. “You’re alright, kid. I’m working on something anyway, and with the way this data looks, I’ll be here for a while longer.” </p>
<p>“I could help.” </p>
<p>The words are out before he’s really thought through them, but he finds he doesn’t want to take them back. This isn’t the police or the SIU, this isn’t Nijima-san, there’s nothing to be gained by being helpful here. He’ll probably never even see this woman again. But he can’t stand the thought of counting the ceiling tiles again, or thinking about that time playing billiards with Akira, or the way he’d looked in the moonlight and neon outside the jazz club, or the wicked grin he’d give Akechi when they passed the baton. </p>
<p>“I mean, I’m no doctor, obviously, but I look at data quite a bit, so I could help you look for patterns or anomalies. I might be helpful.” And now he’s suddenly become quite desperate to look at this mystery medical data, desperate for the distraction. </p>
<p>The doctor levels him with a long, assessing stare, and then gives another of her long sighs. “Alright, kid. Obviously, this is strictly confidential, since it’s medical data, but—here.” </p>
<p>And then she’s beckoning him over to sit on a stool next to her at the desk, and is explaining the charts, what each column means and represents, handing him over some handwritten notes she’s got as well, explaining the medicine, that she’s almost there, just trying to manage side effects. “It has to be suitable for even children to take,” she says solemnly, and he nods, paging through the notes. He flips one more page, and stops, mid-exhale. It’s suddenly difficult to restart his breathing. His hand moves, unbidden, to the top of the page, where he traces the doctor’s surprisingly neat handwriting over the characters for the name Kurusu Akira. His chest has grown tight with that inhale he can’t quite manage.</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s the kid who’s been helping out with the study. Lives around here. You know him or something?”  </p>
<p>Akechi makes an indecipherable noise, and there’s a long pause from the doctor, but she seems to accept it as the only answer she’ll get, because she continues. “Seems like a good kid. Weird, but nice.” </p>
<p>“He—” was “—is.” </p>
<p>“Tell him to chill out about exams next time you see him then. No one needs that much medicine,” she trails off with a snort, and memory dings at the back of Akechi’s mind. This must be the clinic where Akira got all the medicine they’d taken to the Metaverse, which means that Akechi has been the beneficiary of her medical expertise for weeks. And Akira has been participating in some sort of half-baked medical trial—so that he can get them medicine? But the doctor’s earlier words echo in Akechi’s mind—<em>suitable for even children</em>. No, they’d had practically more medicine than they could carry into the palace, between items they’d picked up around Mementos and gotten from chests. He still bought it, but he didn’t need it. The idiot was subjecting himself to—Akira glances down at the notes in front of him—rapidly decreased blood pressure, nausea, and migraines, all for the sake of getting medicine to some child. It’s in that precise moment that Akechi decides he’s going to solve this issue, for this shady, kind doctor in this dingy clinic, tonight. </p>
<p>Akechi will succeed where Akira couldn’t. Akechi will finish what he’s made sure Akira never can. </p>
<p>He stares at the charts until his vision blurs, and then keeps going, talking through what he sees with the doctor—Takemi-san, he learns eventually—talking out issues and anomalies, ignoring the way the name Kurusu Akira haunts him from the top of the pages. </p>
<p>There’s no memory of a transition into sleep, but he wakes up with a start to find a pillow between his head and the desk, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and Takemi-san typing furiously on her screen. </p>
<p>“Wha—?” </p>
<p>Takemi-san turns to him with a smile that’s softer than he expected from her. “I couldn’t bear to wake you up. Looks like pages of boring medical data is the most effective sleep aid I’ve got.” </p>
<p>He’s rapidly returning to wakefulness, sitting up and blinking the sleep from his eyes. “But I was going to—the medicine—” </p>
<p>“Relax, kid. You helped me iron out the last couple of big issues. I’m writing up a report to send to the hospital now.” </p>
<p>Akechi exhales a sigh of—relief? He doesn’t even know how to label his emotions any more, when everything that relates to Akira seems chaotic and confusing, and now <em>everything</em> seems to be tangled up with Akira. </p>
<p>Takemi-san just continues on a hum. “You’re really smart, you know. I can see why they’re calling you the new detective prince now. Not all hype.” </p>
<p>Akechi feels nausea rip through him, the bottom of his stomach dropping out. The joke is that it <em>is</em> all hype, the detective prince stuff. All manufactured cases he could only solve because he’d committed the real crimes at the heart of them. All fake—except this, this was real. No one but this Takemi-san would ever know about this real achievement, while everyone lauded him for the fraud he’d perpetrated on them all. Some part of him is screaming to tell her the truth, to rip those words, that title, out of her mouth so that he can live in the few moments beforehand, when she’d admired him for something honest. </p>
<p>“Last train is in a half hour. We’re not too far from the station, but do you think you’ll make it alright? I can call you a cab.” </p>
<p>Akechi shakes his head, standing up and letting the blanket fall from his shoulders. Moving automatically, he grabs at it and folds it, not really looking. “I’ll be alright, but thank you.” </p>
<p>He’s at the door when Takemi-san calls out from her desk. “Hey—you’re a good kid, you know? You just helped save a little girl’s life with this stuff.” </p>
<p>Akechi stops, still facing the door, and blinks at the sudden heat behind his eyes. He turns and tries to give her a warm smile, but he can tell it’s coming out wobbly. “It was my pleasure to help any way I can.” </p>
<p>Takemi-san nods at him. “Take care of yourself, Akechi-kun.” </p>
<p>Akechi holds himself together all the way to the station, all the way home, but he’s shaking slightly, and he knows he won’t get any more sleep tonight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Only twenty minutes to sleep<br/>But you dream of some epiphany<br/>Just one single glimpse of relief<br/>To make some sense of what you've seen</p>
  <p>(epiphany)</p>
</div>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. to scream ferociously</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>what's a consistent chapter length? what's a consistent update schedule? never met her.  (actually i'm sorry, i'm depressed and trying to have a full time job but i'm still writing! thank you for still reading!)</p><p>song for this chapter is "seven". note that, in keeping with the song, this chapter touches on some dark themes, in particular referenced child abuse from Akechi's canonically terrible childhood and related PTSD, so please take care of yourself when reading! if you're concerned, skip the paragraph beginning with "God, you're pathetic". </p><p>next chapter will be best dad Iwai.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next time the ghost of Kurusu Akira crashes into his life, he’s in Akihabara, a place he’s never before frequented, but he finds himself walking the streets most nights now, pretending he’s shopping when he’s really looking for an excuse not to go home to his silent apartment and his loud thoughts. Tonight, he’s pretending to look at the goods on display in the otaku store, the brightly colored figurines all blurring together in his tired eyes. The sun’s just barely set, there’s a chill in the air of winter coming, and the twilight makes everything softer but the crisp air makes everything sharper. Together, it suffuses the city with an air of unreality, as if he could blink and everything would fade away into a different time and place. </p><p>Or maybe Akechi just needs to sleep. </p><p>He turns away from the display he’s pretending to look at and leaves the store, only to nearly run someone who’s trying to hurry inside, head down and shoulders hunched. </p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” Akechi says reflexively, hands coming up in a gesture of apology. </p><p>“No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t look—” The other person finally looks up, and something in his face changes when he takes in the sight of Akechi. He looks like a high schooler, thin and on the short side with forgettable features except for big, wide eyes that somehow make him look delicate, as if he’s always only a moment away from crying. Right now, though, those eyes are narrowing, sharpening, and his thin mouth is twisting into a sneer. “Oh, it’s you.” </p><p>The boy spits the words out as if Akechi is a piece of trash stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and Akechi feels his body tense instinctively. He’s spent years tensing at the memory of being looked at like this, of having his name tossed around like he’s less than nothing, by his mother, by the men she brought home, by his father even now. It’s no surprise he tenses, but he’s had practice enough at forcibly relaxing the tension in his body that he does so now, keeps his voice steady as he replies, even if the tension remains in the way his mind is on edge, racing and raging. “I’m sorry, but have we met? I don’t think I recognize you.” </p><p>Another customer is trying to come out of the store, so the boy shuffles a few feet over to the side before leveling Akechi with another of those glares, and it’s when they’re moving that Akechi finally takes in everything about the boy in front of him, and realizes—the shirt was unfamiliar, but the pattern on those pants is distinctive and familiar in a way that sets his heart beating faster. His palms are tingling with what he knows is probably a sudden onset of sweat, and he’s glad for his gloves. </p><p>“You don’t know me, but I know you. You’re Akechi Goro, the detective who stopped the Phantom Thieves,” the boy says, voice wavering but in what sounds like rage, like his body isn’t used to containing this much anger. </p><p>“Yes—” Akechi starts, but he’s soon overtaken by another outburst from the boy, who, now that he looks closer, is trembling slightly, hands clenching into fists at his side. </p><p>“You said they were criminals and that they were wrong for doing what they did, but that’s not true. They were helping people when no one else could or would, they were inspiring and supporting people who felt weak and helpless, and <em>they</em> are the ones who are just, not the police and definitely not you!” </p><p>“I—” Akechi starts again, but there’s a ringing in his ears and he feels like he’s suffocating in his school uniform, and he barely manages to stop himself from saying “I know”, because—because he does know. </p><p>He knows that it’s all true. None of them were criminals, Futaba’s hacking aside. They were idealistic teenagers, and he remembers them that way, Ann’s passionate speeches and Ryuji’s righteous anger, the way it had gotten under his skin like nothing else ever had, this borderline delusional belief in justice. As if there was any justice in a world that would have let his father treat his mother the way he had, like a tissue he could use and discard afterward, disgusted by what his use of it had done. Or any justice in a world that would see a poor single mother waste her son’s childhood sending him to a bathhouse while she slept with a parade of shitty men, for drugs, for money, for food, or just to forget, shredding that same tissue over and over until it was nothing but wisps and then throwing it—throwing herself—away into nothingness. He had seen the justice of this world in the minds of dozens of men and women over the past few years, and it was ugly. Thinking of people like objects or pawns or spectators, even the ones that were ostensibly only tangentially related targets—a restaurant cook, a subway driver, normal in their everyday life and yet rotten on the inside just like the yakuza and the crooked politicians. And against all that the Phantom Thieves had somehow persisted in fighting, in believing that they could help these worthless people. It pissed him off, and mostly it pissed him off because he couldn’t help, in the dead of night, indulging in the quiet fantasy of being nine years old again, and having the Phantom Thieves steal the hearts of the bad men around him, until they were crying and apologizing and treating him well, and somehow Akira was always there to hug him at the end of these fantasies. </p><p>Something about seeing Akechi hesitate and flounder must have given the boy enough confidence to continue, because he’s drawn his shoulders up again. “They helped others—they helped <em>me</em>,” he says, voice softer now, and Akechi can’t help from flinching at the softness in his voice. “They helped me when Coach Kamoshida was <em>beating</em> me and all the teachers and the principal and my parents knew and didn’t care, and they helped me when I  lost sight of what was really important to me, and you—you think you’re the one who represents justice.” </p><p>And that same old self-indulgent fantasy is threatening to surface again—being saved by the Phantom Thieves—but with a new twist, because now it doesn’t just end when he’s young. He imagines meeting Akira before he’d ever entered the Metaverse, getting to discover it together, of Akira’s steady hands and quiet laugh beside him, guiding him gently away before he can walk down the path of destruction he’s already on—because he’s, how did the boy put it, <em>lost sight of what was really important</em>. </p><p>He’s rapidly losing whatever handle he had on his control—always does when he lets himself think too long on his childhood—which is bad, because at this moment, a small group of three other boys spot the pair as they walk down the street and change course to come over to them. </p><p>“Oi, Mishima, what the hell are you doing?” one of the boys says, the kind of grin on his face that reminds Akechi firmly of Shido, which is not good for his tenuous grasp on his facade of the charming, relatable detective prince. </p><p>“Yeah, what’s a zero like you doing harassing someone like this guy?  You finally grow a spine and you use it to beat up on heroes like him?” a second boy continues,  identical smirk on his face. The third hangs somewhat behind the other two, hesitating, eyes flitting between the boy who confronted Akechi—Mishima, the interloper had called him, and the name rings a bell in Akechi’s memory (<em>Mishima Yuuki, Shujin Academy second year, volleyball player, likely involved as victim of Kamoshida Suguru</em>)—and the two who are now leering threateningly. </p><p>“A-Akiyama-kun?” Mishima hesitates, looking imploringly at the third boy, who starts to step forward but then just looks to the side, flushed with guilt. </p><p>“That’s all you have to say for yourself? We could hear you yelling at Akechi-kun from the other side of the road, but all you can say now is ‘A-Akiyama-kun’?” </p><p>The first boy’s voice is laughing and cold, mimicking Mishima’s voice as a high, whining thing, and Akechi’s head is <em>pounding</em>, mind trying to take in all of the input it’s been given and spit out the appropriate response, the detective prince response, while the whole time beneath the surface is just a nightmare sea of churning memories—Mishima’s accusing face from a few minutes earlier, <em>when Coach Kamoshida was beating me</em>, the distinctive smell of the bathhouse (<em>was it when he went with Akira and let too much of his mask slip or was he remembering the way it had smelled when he was a child, sitting alone in a tub with just old men watching him predatorily, waiting for a mother who’d forget to call him home</em>), the pattern of Mishima’s pants on another set of legs that were longer and leaner and attached to a wry grin, <em>people who felt weak and helpless</em>. </p><p>“I appreciate it, but we were just having a friendly debate, there’s no need—” he starts, turning to the two new boys, but it turns out he was just an excuse, not a reason, because the second boy interrupts him, stepping closer so that he can loom imposingly into Mishima’s space, inches from where Akechi is trying his best to smile nonthreateningly,. </p><p>“God, you’re pathetic,” the boy says, disdain dripping from every syllable, and—Akechi hears the boy say it, hears Shido say, his mother say it, a string of faceless men touching his mother say it, one of them with a face saying it, turning away from his mother on the bed to where Akechi stands in the doorway, shivering and alone, a face that’s fat and twisted in anger with thin lips that shape the word pathetic right before his hand comes up to smack Akechi into the doorframe, and Akechi can taste the blood in his mouth again, he’s panting for air and—</p><p>“Akechi-kun! Hey!” The voice breaks through the memory, and he blinks to realize that he’s got the bully pinned to the wall of the otaku store, gloved fingers wrapped so tightly around his throat that he can feel the boy’s pulse fluttering wildly against his palm. It’s Mishima who’s calling his name, trying to get between the two of them, eyes wide with fear even as he places a tentative hand on Akechi’s wrist. The other boys have stumbled back, but Mishima—<em>when Coach Kamoshida was beating me</em>, <em>A-Akiyama-kun?</em>, <em>they helped me</em> Mishima, is the one helping now. Defending his own bully from the monster that Akechi has turned into, has revealed himself to be. </p><p>Akechi drops his hand, staring at the ground as he takes a deep, trembling breath. “I—I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. I appreciate your concern, but Mishima-kun and I were simply having a conversation, albeit one of hearty disagreement. You may be fans of mine, but I wouldn’t want—I don’t—I encourage the passionate exchange of ideas. Please, don’t trouble Mishima-kun, or anyone else, because they disagree with my actions.” His voice is quiet, and he doesn’t look up from the ground, but he hears some murmured acknowledgement and the sound of footsteps on the concrete departing. </p><p>He thinks he’s alone until he hears a half-shuffle of hesitant feet in front of him, followed by Mishima’s voice.</p><p>“Thank you. This doesn’t make up for what you did to the Phantom Thieves, though.” </p><p>“I know.” It comes out this time, quiet but clear, and he can’t see the look on Mishima’s face but he hears the sudden intake of breath well enough to guess at his expression. There’s a moment of hesitation, another awkward shuffle of sneakers on sidewalk, and Akechi wonders if Mishima will say something else, but he just turns and walks away, leaves Akechi to stumble his way around the corner of the otaku store and sink into a crouch, knees clutched tightly to his chest as he tries to remember how to breathe.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Please picture me in the weeds<br/>Before I learned civility<br/>I used to scream ferociously<br/>Any time I wanted</p>
  <p>(seven)</p>
</div>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>